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A fun superhero origin tale that delivers some great action and fleshed-out characters, all while putting Asian culture on display in a respectful manner. The story is ultimately pretty simple, and the trailers give away some of the key moments, but there’s still a lot to explore and it’s wells-structured. (Although they rely just a touch too much on using flashbacks to reveal important details.) The acting from the leads is good. Simu Lui has to display both Shang-Chi’s conflicted nature and his physical prowess, and he especially succeeds with the fight choreography. Awkafina has a solid performance as the best friend thrown into a crazy new world, and she tones down her comedy just enough so that’s it’s not overdone. And Tony Leung’s gives us one of the most layered Marvel villains with his Wenwu, by giving us a character with a heart and sympathetic motivations. The action in fantastic, but progressively becomes less impressive, as we go from the Jackie Chan-inspired bus fight to the overblown finale with plenty of disposable heroes and villains surrounded by CGI everything. The special effects are pretty good, and there’s probably a lot of stuff that you can’t even tell isn’t real, but some of the more fantasy-based elements are noticeably computer-generated. While they don’t look bad, they lack the polish of the high-end Marvel productions like The Avengers. There’s a mid-credits and post-credits scene, both are worth checking out as they hint at the future for these characters.
**** out of *****